Mike Downey

Mike Downey, producer, and CEO of Film and Music Entertainment (F&ME), launched his independent UK production company on the Frankfurt DAX in 2009. Since then, he has produced more than 40 feature films, with producing partner Sam Taylor and company chairman Stephen Daldry. F&ME's catalogue includes UKFC funded WHITE LIGHTNIN', Saul Metzstein's GUY X, DEATHWATCH (with Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis), U.S. Academy Award nominated and Venice Golden Lion winning BEFORE THE RAIN and a slew of international co-productions written by Günter Grass, Thomas Keneally, James Ellroy and Clifford (HOAX) Irving. His award-winning South African production SON OF MAN premiered at Sundance, as did WHITE LIGHTNIN'. The film GLANCES opened the Venice Film Festival. Downey's books The Film Finance Handbooks - A Guide for European Producers are published by the MEDIA Business School. Educated in theatre at the University of Warwick, with postgraduate studies at the University of Paris III (Sorbonne) and Paris X (Nanterre), he has long taught at the MEGA European Masters programme. Being a Quondam Thomas Ewing Professor of Film (Ohio University) and a member of the Film Board of Oklahoma University, he is also President of the Motovun Film Festival in Croatia and Artistic Advisor to the Zagreb Film Festival. He works closely with Amnesty International establishing Amnesty Human Rights Awards at several international film festivals and is a consultant for USAID, the American government programme rebuilding infrastructure (film) in the Balkans. Downey has served three terms as member of the Council of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts as well as one term on the BAFTA Film Committee. He is a member of the board of the Berlin Golden Bear winning (U-CARMEN) South African Theatre Company Isango along with Sir Ian McKellan and Sir Simon Rattle. Mike is particularly proud to be a trustee of the White Ribbon Foundation - an international charity which works to eradicate women dying in childbirth in the developing world. Mike Downey produced Agnieszka Holland's CHARLATAN (2020) which was in the Berlinale competition. He joined the EFA Board in 2004, was elected deputy chairman in 2014, and chairman in 2020. In 2021, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Mike Downey as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to European film.